Radiography Programme, UCL University College, Denmark.
School of Communication and Culture - Information Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark.
Radiography (Lond). 2024 Aug;30(5):1385-1390. doi: 10.1016/j.radi.2024.07.016. Epub 2024 Aug 10.
This study investigates patients' experience of selected imaging examinations and how human experiences are transformed through technological mediation.
A qualitative study of patients' experiences during selected imaging examinations, centering on human-technology relations, was conducted. Data was gathered in two Danish hospitals, through semi-structured interviews and participant observations. The study included fifteen diagnostic imaging examination cases, distributed over three Computed Tomography (CT)-guided lung biopsy interventions, seven conventional CT examinations, and five Positron Emission Tomography CT examinations. The participating patients were undergoing investigation for cancer within Fast Track Cancer Referral Programs (FTCRP). The study has a philosophical approach to practice grounded in Postphenomenology and draws on anthropological studies of healthcare practice as its theoretical and analytical framework.
Diagnostic imaging technologies were found to have existential implications creating hope and trust in patients. Patients demonstrated technological readiness, in their willingness to comply with examination criteria and the professional's instructions. The patient's primary concern was achieving a good examination result, for which they were prepared to push themselves beyond their usual limits. Participating in diagnostic imaging examinations may be viewed as a life crisis ritual, wherein patients are constituted as liminal beings, existing between healthy and sick.
The existential implications of an imaging examination were clear in terms of hope and trust. Hope is related to life and death in two temporal perspectives: A future hope of surviving cancer and a present hope of being cancer-free. Hope was linked to avoiding despair and rested on trusting oneself to technology, thus, forming a circle of interrelated concepts.
Professionals need to recognize the patients' liminal passings yet, unnoticed transformative and existential implications, to perform better patient-centered care.
本研究调查了患者对特定影像学检查的体验，以及人类体验如何通过技术中介发生转变。
对患者在特定影像学检查中的体验进行定性研究，重点关注人机关系。数据收集于丹麦的两家医院，通过半结构化访谈和参与者观察。该研究包括十五个诊断性影像学检查案例，分布在三个 CT 引导下的肺活检干预、七个常规 CT 检查和五个正电子发射断层扫描 CT 检查中。参与的患者正在 Fast Track Cancer Referral Programs (FTCRP) 下接受癌症检查。该研究采用后现象学的实践哲学方法，以医疗保健实践的人类学研究为理论和分析框架。
影像学技术具有存在意义，为患者带来希望和信任。患者表现出技术准备，愿意遵守检查标准和专业人员的指示。患者最关心的是获得良好的检查结果，为此他们愿意超越自己的正常极限。参与影像学检查可以被视为生活危机仪式，患者在健康和疾病之间被视为边缘人。
影像学检查的存在意义在希望和信任方面是明确的。希望与生死在两个时间视角相关：未来战胜癌症的希望和现在无癌症的希望。希望与避免绝望有关，取决于对自己和技术的信任，从而形成一个相互关联的概念圈。
专业人员需要认识到患者的边缘状态，但要注意未被察觉的变革和存在意义，以提供更好的以患者为中心的护理。
